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Breathe

This past week was hellish.

I could blame on it work.  Or the insomnia.  Or perhaps the low grade fever I was running part of the week.  And none of that shit helped…

But none of that was the problem either.  The problem exists in my head.  That isn’t to say that the problem isn’t real, it’s just that it has to do with the way I think, the way I perceive myself, the way I see the world.

Earlier this week, I talked about what to do now… and my friend Lisa pointed out that maybe I just need to take some time and ‘lick my wounds.’

And she has tapped into what some of the problem has been.

Despite what you may have heard, I really try to be a positive and upbeat person.  From the moment I signed the lease, I’ve been trying to tell myself that this is a new opportunity.  A chance to shake a negative and unhappy circumstance for a fresh start.  A new beginning.

I’m not sad it’s over.  I don’t miss her.  (I thought I would, but truly I don’t.)  This is a new beginning.  But, and this is critical, this is still a massive change.  And change is hard.

I knew certain things would be hard for me, and did  my best to prepare for them.  Yet, I think I underestimated the impact this would have on me.  Where I am right now and where I was even a few months ago is so different.  I need to change my thinking about everything.  Even the simplest things are different.  I’m so used to thinking as part of many, and now I just have to think for me.

In the long run, this will be a good thing.  I know this in the core of my being.  But the adjustment is difficult.  Things catch me by surprise and next thing I know I am completely depressed.

By the middle of the week, I was tempted to walk out of my job, fall off the wagon and drive.  Just drive away.

Everything is so different.  I begin to question everything.  Do I really care about my career?  Or is that something I did to provide for my family?  Do I still want to do this?  It all seemed so meaningless.  Why not walk away from all of it…

Obviously, I did not.  I am here.  I am still working.  I am still soldiering on.

I just need to be patient.  Let the change happen.  Don’t force it, let things evolve.  To just slow down and breathe.

What now…

That is the question that is in my mind, I think.  Day and night, just below consciousness the question is there.

What I am going to do now?

It’s more that just a question of finding something to occupy my time.  I realize that the very way I’ve defined myself for the last several years is in question.

The very way I think about things is no longer adequate.  I have no idea how I am, what I want or what to do about it.

Peopel say helpful things like, “You need to meet people.”

No shit.  Why didn’t I think of that?

I know they mean well, but of course I need to meet people… I just literally don’t know how.  And no, a list of place where people could be found will not help.  I know that people are out there.  I just don’t know how to talk to them in such a way that a conversation turns into friendship.  I wasn’t good at then when I was younger… and I haven’t got any better.

Part of me says, just relax it will come in time….

And that is probably true, but I worry.  What if while I am waiting for things to work out, I turn into a lonely guy who lives in his lonely apartment and nothing more.

I don’t want that happen.  I want this to be opportunity… or something.

But for what…

I know these posts sound like a broken record.  There is a good reason for it.  The question I hear whispering in my head (all day, everyday) keeps gnawing at me.  I only hope that talking about it ‘outloud’ will help to answer it.  Or silence it.

Problems big and small…

I have, in the last few posts, talked about big problems.  What am I going to do now?  Who am I?  This kind of thing.

Rest assured I have smaller problems too.  For example:

Wednesday I came home from work, and early at that.  After a string of days where I didn’t get in my house before 8 or 9 at night, I was home at 5.  A nice relaxing night at home was just what I needed.

I changed, got relaxed and decided to cook myself a nice dinner, chicken with rice and red beans.  I put on a chicken breast on my trusty Foreman Grilled, boiled a pot of water and added the rice and bean mix.

About that time, my phone chirped to let me know that I had new email.  I checked it and it was a fairly important issue form work.  Luckily, I’d be able to correct it easily.  So since I had 15 minutes or so till dinner was cooked, I got out my laptop and connected to work.

I emailed the customer that had contacted me and explained how we could resolve the issue.  I connected to the server and poked around while I waited for her answer.  I didn’t have to wait long.  She emailed me back to accept my suggested solution. I made the necessary changes on the server and emailed her back to let her know the issue had been addressed and resolved.

It was as I was composing that email, that I start to smell something unpleasant, like something burning.  I ran back into the kitchen and found that the water had completely boiled away from the rice and beans.  The remaining contents were completely scorched.

At least the chicken was okay… although maybe a little dry.

Good to home again

I know that the past few posts sound all doom and gloom.  And I’ll admit, there is some doom and a bit of gloom.  But it’s not all like that.  Take this weekend for example.

I came home from work Friday, changed, grabbed my already packed bags and then headed out to pick up the kids.  We drove to Rochester, NY where my brother and his wife live.  It took 6 hours and we didn’t get there till a little after 1:00 AM, but that was all part of the plan.

I was amused as I saw the amounts of snow on the ground steadily decrease as we drove north.  I went from having 2 to 3 feet of snow on the ground at home in Maryland, to having 3 inches in the great white north.

Saturday, after some much needed sleep, my brother made us a big breakfast of French Toast and Sausage.  We went to the Seneca Park Zoo, with the intention of checking out the polar bears and the penguins.  The theory being that they would be much more active than we’d seen them else where, being winter and all.  As it turned out, the polar bears were sleeping and the penguins were on hiatus or something.  We did, however, get to see up close and personal a tiger, a cougar and a sea lion and I took over a 150 pictures while I was at it.  (Of course I’ll delete most of them, but it makes sure that I get the good ones.) We had a great time.

We had carnitas for dinner and amused ourselves by watching Olympic curling after.   Sunday morning we got up and hit the road.  The long drive home was uneventful, other than a short but expensive conversation with one of Pennsylvania’s Finest.

After I dropped the kids off, I ran over to a a friends 40th birthday party and had a good time there.

I was out and about essentially, from 8:00 AM Friday morning till10:30 PM Sunday night.  I’m tired, but I was busy and had a lot of fun.

It was a very nice contrast to many of the weekends I’ve had recently.  And not a moment too soon.  Perhaps the best part was coming home.  Because it does feel like home now.  And I was glad to be back.

Faith

I friend told me tonight that I have to have faith.

I gave him the look that I give people when I believe that they have said something meaningles

Knowing that I am a firm nonbeliever, he clarified, it doesn’t have to be faith in a higher power… just faith that things will work out.

I simply answered that I can’t do faith.  He didn’t understand why not.

And do get me wrong, I’m not saying that things won’t get better.  But I can’t have Faith that they will.  I can’t simply believe that based on nothing.

Especailly when my experience has been very different than that to this point.  Why would it change now?  How can I have faith in that?

The only way things are going to get better is if someone (I’m guessing me) does something to make it that way.  And sitting around having faith isn’t going to get that done.

I have no time for that.

Adjusting

I don’t want to paint a picture that is all doom and gloom.  I’m not miserable all of the time.  It’s just that when things get hard… sometimes they get really hard.

When I realized that this is how it was going to be, I was sure that living alone would be the hardest adjustment.  I’ve never lived alone before.  I’d always had a a roommate or something.   I was afraid that coming home to an empty house would be the most depressing and lonely thing ever.

As it turns out, that part has been fine.  I kind of like it.  My new is home is a very small (no… what ever you are picturing… smaller) one bedroom apartment.  It will never be great for entertaining, but it works for now.  It’s clean and cheap.  I’ve got it set up fairly well… considering.  My brothers and parents got me a nice 32″ LCD TV for Christmas and I’ve been able to watch my Netflix and a little TV if I feel like it.

On a typical work day, I come home, check my Facebook, Twitter and IM to see what my friends are up to.  I make a little dinner.  Okay, who am I kidding, I make a big dinner.  Usually with bacon.  Sooner or later, I will have to think about eating healthy, but I’m not there yet.  I watch a little TV, maybe listen to some music and read a book.   I’m at peace with it.

But on days off… weekends, snow days, holidays, it’s a different story.  Sometimes I have one or both of my kids and that is great.  But the rest of the time, I’m alone.  And while I have plenty that could keep me busy, books to read, photos to edit, music to download, comic books to read and organize, chores to do… the loneliness overwhelms all of it.  Instead of doing any of the things I could do or even just deciding to relax and do nothing, I obsess on the loneliness.

I check Facebook and IM to see if there is anyone to talk to.  I pace.  I talk to myself.  Out loud.  A lot.  People tell me that I need to get out there and do something.  Easy for them to say.  We’re having the worst winter I can remember, getting out isn’t as easy as you might think.  But that’s only the beginning of the problem.  What exactly am I supposed to get out and do.  Go drive some where, by myself, and be lonely in a different place?

Go to a bar, club, whatever?  I don’t drink, I shouldn’t drink and I won’t drink.  And sitting at a bar nursing a soda, hoping that I might be able to find some one to talk to… that doesn’t sound any better to me.

I understand the problem, it’s simple really.  I’ve spent the last 10 years being a family guy, in my quiet way.  I didn’t go out and do things, I didn’t hang with the guys and play poker or anything like that.  And now, when you take the family part of it, there is a gaping hole that I’m not sure how to fill.

I need to adjust.  I need to figure out who I am now.  Still a family guy in some ways, but different now.  I need to meet people.  I need to figure out what I want to do.  And this has been hard on me.

It’s not all negative.  Saturday night I went with a coworker to go so Furthur in concert.  And that was a much needed excursion.  And sooner or later, this winter will end.  Then I can go camping.  Backpacking, if I can get in shape.  And somewhere along the way, I’ll meet people and reconnect with others.

But in the mean time, I’m adjusting.  And sometimes it is hard.

The one about how I hate Valentine’s Day

I know.  It’s s predictable.  Me.  Hating Valentine’s Day.

But there’s more to it than that.

Of course I hate it.  I’m a guy.  We all hate.  (Some of us just aren’t in a position to admit it.)  It’s a market driven holiday, designed to make us spend money.  It creates an obligation to do something special.

That’s bad enough.  To add insult to injury (or to throw salt in the wound, pick your campy metaphor) in high school a girl actually dumped me on Valentine’s Day.  My luck did not improve through college.  Or beyond.

Eleven years ago, on Valentine’s Day, I decided to change my luck.  I was dating this girl, living with her actually.  I took her out for dinner in Baltimore, but first we went to Federal Hill.  There, with the Inner Harbor as my back drop, I asked her to marry me.  She said yes…

But it didn’t take.

And now I hate this day more than ever.

Starting over…

I know that I’ve said on numerous occasions that blogging is dead, but here I am.

As imperfect a medium as this is… and it really is… it’s the one I know.  And I have a lot of stuff I feel that I need to work out.  So here we are.

My wife and I separated after Thanksgiving.  People seem to believe that when I use the word ’seperated’ that it implies the possibility of this being temporary.  It’s not.  It’s over.  Apparently, it’s a process.  You seperate. You get lawyers.  You divorce.  I’m not clear on the details yet, but I’m not clear on a lot of things these days.

What happened?  Who knows.  Nothing really.  It’s been over.  For a long time.  It just became the right time to acknowledge the reality of what was happening.  She told me over a year ago that she wanted it over.  She was right, but I was fixated on the concept.  I didn’t want to be divorced.  I should have been asking myself, ‘do you want to be married?’

After more than a year of ’staying  together for the kids,’ the reality that I didn’t want to live like this finally set in.  And here I am.

I’m not sad that we split up.  It was the right thing to do, I feel that with every fiber of my being.

But I’m not really happy either.  I am trying to be.  Trying to stay upbeat and  positive.

Laugh it up.  A lot of you that know me here, there or in the real world don’t think that I have it in me to be positive.  You are wrong.  I want to be positive.  I want to believe that things are going to get better.  That this change is actaully just what I needed.  And a lot of the time, I DO feel like that.

But other times, it gets overwhelming.  I’ve spent the past decade working towards a set of goals, an ideal, that has evaporated.   And I find myself asking, Now what?

The reality is simple, in the real world I don’t have any real friends, I haven’t really socialized.  I was a family guy. Go to work, come home and be with the fam.  I have some sort of network of people here on the internet.  But most of  them are a lot like acquaintances.  The long and the short of it is this:  I suddenly find myself alone, out of my element and with no clear idea what I should do next.

I can’t keep on like this.  I work.  I come home and do nothing.  Several well meaning folks have made many suggestions as to what I could do for fun… to get out.  What they do not know or understand are these two facts:

First, I’m broke.  I know, there is a recession, we are all broke.  Be that as it may, we were barely keeping it afloat before, now trying to support two households is straining it to the point of breaking.

Second, I have serious social anxiety issues.  It is so hard for me to talk to people, especially in a large groups of people.   Suggestions like, go to such and such a place there will be loads of people there, are extremely stressful to me.

When I explain this… I often get the response, I was just trying to give you some advice… you don’t have to take it.  The thing is, I don’t really need advice, at least not like that.  I know what I want to do.  It’s just hat I don’t know if I can do it.

So much in my life has changed.  It’s not like going back to before I was married.  I am a different (and hopefully better) person than I was then.  It’s starting over from scratch.  And I’m not sure where to begin.

So for starters, I’ll write about it.  And we’ll see where it goes from there.

Tie-dyes!

My inner-hippy has been banging to get out more and more these days.   Ratdog and The Dead concerts.  An ever growing collection of audience recorded live Jam Band Concerts.  And tie-dyes.  If I’m not working, I’m probably wearing one.

Unfortunately, the damn things cost a fortune. $35, $40 even $50 a piece.  There was only one logical conclusion:

Make my own!

When I was a kid, and again in college, i’d made tie-dyes with RIT dye, but they didn’t look as good the ones I could buy.  And they faded after just a few washes.

I did some homework, figured out how some of the more eye-popping designs we achieved and learned what dyes to use.

We made two each; one spiral and one ‘V’ pattern.

The results speak for themselves.

td01td02
td03
td04
td05
td06
td07
td08

I think I’m going about this all wrong…

It occurs to me that problem is me.

I look around and no one else seems to be bothered.  It stands to reason that the problem is me.

Maybe I try too hard.  Maybe my goals are unrealistic. Maybe my perception of myself is not in line with reality.

I shouldn’t be working this hard.  I should put in these hours. I already know that, due to budget constraints, there will be no raise this year.  Again.  Couple that with the fact that I can’t even get recognized for my efforts.  Not even a fucking atta boy.

Getting a new job? Well that’s not working either.

I think I need new goals.

Perhaps I should just work “johnny punchclock” hours and smoke a lot of pot.  Potheads seem generally relaxed.  Sure it would prevent me from getting a new job in all likelihood, but the current job has no drug testing policies.  Hell, I should probably come to work high.  That would have to make things go smoother.

I wouldn’t be as productive… but who cares. It’s not like its going to cost me a raise or something.  I mean what exactly am I doing all this for?  Because it’s the right thing to do?  I’m not sure that it really is.

Maybe that plan has some flaws, but something has to give.  If I keep going like this… I’m not going to be worth anything to anyone.